


Someone I've Never Met

by FifteenDozenTimes



Series: Beach House OT3 [3]
Category: Bandom, Disney RPF, Panic At The Disco
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-22
Updated: 2011-08-22
Packaged: 2017-10-22 23:18:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/243663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FifteenDozenTimes/pseuds/FifteenDozenTimes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brendon comes out to his parents, in a manner of speaking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Someone I've Never Met

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Music Is My Boyfriend meme](http://15dozentimes.livejournal.com/4407.html); this pairing/song (Panic's "That Green Gentleman") combo sparked actual fic instead of songfic.
> 
> Someday I will write the fic that actually explains this, but until then: Brendon & Nicole got pregnant not long after bringing Spencer into the relationship, when stuff was still shaky. In an effort to keep Spencer from feeling left out, Brendon & Nicole got in the habit of calling the baby Spencer Jr., or Spencer 2, and that's what they ended up naming her because dorks.

_Things are shaping up to be pretty odd  
Little deaths in musical beds  
So it seems I'm someone I've never met_

 _..._

 _Things have changed for me, and that's okay  
I feel the same, I'm on my way, and I say  
Things have changed for me, and that's okay_

*

Brendon asked them not to listen in on the call, not to come find him afterwards, that he’d probably want alone time but as soon as he needed them he’d come find them. Spencer’s used to this, to the way dealing with his parents turns Brendon into someone he barely knows, but Nicole’s only ever known Brendon’s parents in the context of them being happy he settled into what they think is a normal heterosexual marriage, and he can see how much she’s worrying.

“He’s fine,” Spencer promises her for the fiftieth time in the last hour. “This is normal.”

She nods, but her eyes don’t stop drifting down the hall towards the bedroom Brendon had shut himself in, and every line of her body is straining that way, like something’s physically holding her to the couch and if it wasn’t there she’d be sitting in Brendon’s lap trying to cuddle him through this. Spencer gives up on reassuring her in favor of scrawling a note to Brendon, getting Spencer 2 and the dogs ready for the park, and refusing to take no for an answer when he tells Nicole they’re getting out of the house for a while.

The sky is brilliant blue, the grass smells freshly cut, and it doesn’t take anywhere near as long as he’d expected for Nicole to stop biting her lip in worry and start laughing about how she can’t hold Spencer 2 on her hip with one arm and throw a ball for the dogs with the other without jostling the baby. It doesn’t occur to her to stop either one, to disappoint any of her babies for even as long as it takes Spencer to lay down a blanket and fish some snacks out of his bag, and Spencer loves her with everything he has.

Spencer doesn’t make her sit with him on the blanket so he can rest his head on her stomach where it’s just starting to get noticeably round again, but he doesn’t complain when she hands him the slobbery tennis ball and demands he find a way to throw it and cuddle her at the same time.

It takes Brendon a little over an hour to show up, sweating like he rode his bike even though it’s, like, eighty degrees out. Spencer 2’s dozing in her stroller, Nicole’s dozing on the blanket, and the dogs have given up on their hypercompetitive fetch to lie in the shade and ignore all Spencer’s attempts to coax one of them over for petting. He flops down on the blanket and rolls to press his face against Nicole’s stomach, throwing an arm over her waist; she shifts into him, her hand coming up to comb through his hair, before Spencer even realizes she’s awake. He wants, has wanted, to ask her where she learned to do that, if being able to just comfort someone with touch is something you’re born with or something you learn, and if it’s too late for him to learn to stop trying to fix things for people and just hug them instead. Or ask if she knew when they met how perfect she is for Brendon.

“I’m not the good heterosexual son anymore,” Brendon says, when he’s caught his breath.

It was a good story when Spencer came up with it, something that would let them all be involved with the kids without raising eyebrows when they start school. It still is a good story, Brendon and Nicole amicably divorcing, Brendon getting together with Spencer, everyone being friendly because they put the kids first. But Spencer hadn’t really considered - hadn’t had to, his parents and Nicole’s are okay with the truth - what it might do to Brendon.

“Did you at least tell them I cheated?” Nicole asks.

“Fuck no,” Brendon says, kisses her stomach. “I told you I wouldn’t. They love you, if they keep thinking you’re wonderful we won’t have to, like, leave you at home if we ever do holidays with them.”

“You still didn’t - “

“Nic,” Brendon says, sitting up a little. “My mom said, more than once, she saw this coming. I don’t think you could have fallen on this particular sword, no matter how much you want to.”

Nicole doesn’t argue more, just pushes herself up and goes to check on the baby, then the dogs. Brendon sighs and rolls over to take her spot against Spencer’s side.

“Your ‘fixer’ thing is rubbing off on her.”

“Sorry.”

“I know you well enough to know that if you apologize for anything today, you’re probably secretly trying to apologize for turning my relationship into one I can’t bring home to my parents, so you should stop before I’m forced to smack some sense into you.”

Spencer doesn’t bother to confirm that Brendon’s at least a little bit right; they’ve had this talk enough he doesn’t need to. It isn’t fair that Brendon has to do this, but not so unfair Spencer would give any of this up, or that either of them would ask him to, so it’s not worth bringing up. Lots of things are unfair.

“I get that it’s weird for you two,” Brendon says, watching Nicole and Spencer 2 throwing cereal at each other instead of looking at Spencer. “It’s weird for me that your parents have always been okay with this. Like, Nicole got advice from her mom before she ever brought you up to me, I can’t even imagine that. It’s - I’ve never been the person they think I am, or should be, and they’ve never really known the person I am. I’m used to it.”

“You shouldn’t have to be, though.”

“No,” Brendon says. “And you shouldn’t have to make up stories so people won’t question your place in our kids’ lives. Nicole shouldn’t have to pretend to my parents and twelve years’ worth of teachers that we’re not in love. And we don’t have to, we could totally give this up any time. But I don’t want to.”

“I hate you,” Nicole says, as Spencer 2’s cherished stuff octopus goes sailing over Spencer’s head. “Please don’t let that be your first memory.”

Spencer flops his arm out to try and grab the octopus without having to actually look for it; Nicole lets him flop around uselessly for way too long before she gets up to get it herself.

“I don’t either,” he says, after he ducks away from Nicole’s attempt to smack him with the octopus. If Brendon keeps smiling at him like this, he’s pretty sure that will always be true.


End file.
